Posts Tagged ‘Triple Threat’

Following the tag team Elimination Chamber, the announce team reviews Rusev’s injury and the unknown factor this adds to the Intercontinental Championship Chamber Match. Rusev tweets that the stupid American doctors won’t let him compete because of a little broken foot. He says in his country, he would put on duct tape and fight. Lana gives Dolph Ziggler some words of encouragement.

The Triple Threat Match for the Divas Championship is up next as Nikki Bella makes her way to the ring. Naomi and Paige come out next. As announced on the preshow, both Tamina and Brie Bella have been barred from ringside. In the early going, Naomi slams Nikki into the announce table and she’s down and out on the floor. Paige gets a near fall off a Bodyslam and goes through a trio of Short-arm Clotheslines on Naomi. Paige kicks Nikki trying to get back in the ring, knocking her down. Fallaway Slam on Naomi. Cover for a near fall. Nikki back in. Facebreaker from Nikki on Paige. Nikki splashes both challengers in the corner. Alabama Slam on Paige. Naomi rolls Nikki up in a Schoolgirl for a near fall. Naomi clubs Nikki in the corner and covers Paige for a near fall and then stomps on her gut. Naomi posts Nikki and Nikki crashes back out to the floor. Naomi works over Paige and hits a Snap Suplex. Standing Leg Drop from Naomi on Paige. Naomi taunts the crowd. Naomi puts Paige up on the top turnbuckle backward and climbs up after her. Paige fights her off long enough for Nikki to break it up with a Tower of Doom move. Nikki covers Naomi. Near fall. Nikki covers Paige. Near fall. Cliche. Moving on. Nikki sets up for the Rack Attack on Paige, but Naomi breaks it up with the Rear View. Naomi covers Nikki, but Paige breaks it up. PTO locked in on Nikki, but Naomi hits a Superkick to break it up. Cover on Paige for a near fall. Naomi ends up on Paige’s shoulders and does a botched Reverse Frankensteiner and covers her, but Paige kicks out for a near fall. Great work though. Never seen divas do that before. Nikki ducks an Enziguri from Naomi and hits her with the Rack Attack. Nikki covers Naomi for the three count and retains the championship.

Brie shows up to help her celebrate. The Bellas run atop the Divas division will continue for the time being. This wasn’s up to the standard that the NXT ladies set, but it was very good for a Divas match, particularly one that featured Nikki Bella. Well done.

Within the last hour before the Kickoff show went live, it was announced on wwe.com that Rusev had not been cleared to compete and thus will not be a part of the Elimination Chamber for the Intercontinental Championship tonight, meaning that we have a surprise opening in that chamber match.

On the preshow, Booker T announces that his sources are telling him Rusev will be replaced in the Elimination Chamber by a former World Heavyweight Champion. That points to potentially The Miz, Jack Swagger, Mark Henry, Big Show, Kane or Randy Orton. Unless somebody like a Chris Jericho were to make a surprise appearance tonight.

Backstage, Kane is talking in the Authority’s office with all 3 members of New Day and New Day asks to be rewarded for helping The Authority out against Dean Ambrose and Roman Reigns. Kane reveals that he has decided that all three members of New Day will be allowed to compete in the Elimination Chamber tonight. Xavier asks if this means they will get a bigger pod so that all three of them can fit. Kane looks confused and says if that is going to cause a problem, he can arrange for New Day to start the match and make them go through every other team. Big E and Kofi then immediately cover Xavier’s mouth before he can make things worse and says it won’t be a problem, they’ll fit. So, the bottom line is that we know all 3 members of New Day will be in the match and they will not be one of the two teams starting the match.

Another announcement was made on the preshow, this time having to do with the Divas Championship match. A ruling has been made during the Divas Championship Triple Threat match, nobody will be allowed at ringside. That means that Brie Bella and Tamina won’t be in Nikki Bella and Naomi’s respective corners. That means we will likely have a better match than just a couple of minutes full of interference and then a quick pin and a new champion. However, even with them banned from ringside, I wouldn’t rule out some kind of interference taking place.

At ringside, the announce team talks about the Tough Enough auditions and then we have an impromptu, unannanounced preshow match as Zack Ryder makes his way to the ring. I don’t think Ryder has had a singles match on a Pay Per View / PPV Preshow in over a year. Tonight, he’s taking on Stardust, who lost to R-Truth on the Payback preshow two weeks ago.

Stardust controls the early going, mostly working the torso and Ryder’s left arm. Ryder counters a Vertical Suplex into a Neckbreaker and the tables are turned. Very nice Missile Dropkick from Ryder off the ring apron to the floor. The announce team plays up Stardust’s run-in with Stephen Amell on Raw last week. Ryder hits the Broski Boot and goes for the Rough Ryder, but Stardust blocks it. Stardust ends up winning with the Cross Rhodes. JBL says it’s now called the Queen’s Crossbow, playing up a potential Stardust / Amell program.

Tom Phillips interviews Lana. She sells the beef between her and Rusev and gets gooey over Ziggler. In case you missed Smackdown, Rusev is no longer waving a Russian flag. Instead, he’s waving a Bulgarian flag. That’s a step that seems like Rusev and Lana won’t be reuniting to swerve Ziggler, but you never know.

The Miz returns, announced by Summer Rae. Miz is wearing an even crappier version of his black man-dress from his last run. Not only is he a boring performer and a below average wrestler, but he continues to have the worst fashion sense of anybody on the planet. He’s interviewing Daniel Bryan on a Miz-TV segment. Miz does the typical heel thing and asks Bryan a question and then interrupts and answers it himself. Bryan says his career is not over and he WILL be back. Bryan promotes his upcoming book. Miz says that due to doctor’s orders, Byran can’t touch him and he can’t touch Bryan. However, Bryan says that he finds Miz-TV boring and has an alternative solution to continuing it and points to the back and Macho Mandow and Axelmania make their way to the ring and clobber Miz. Axel drops the leg on Miz and Miz rolls out to the floor and retreats. The Faux Mega Powers pose down with Daniel Bryan to end the segment.

Dean Ambrose is being interviewed. Ambrose says that no matter what the Authority has planned, he’s going down swinging. Roman Reigns shows up and says that Ambrose only has to worry about Seth Rollins tonight because he will be in the corner.

JBL closes down the preshow, standing inside the Elimination Chamber and reviews the rules of the Chamber match. The chamber is set up, so it looks like one of the two Elimination Chamber matches is coming up first on the main card.

We kick off the main show with a bunch of female models on a runway modeling some Tyler Breeze style fur clothing. Breeze then comes out, but instead of his usual fur jacket, he’s wearing a cape. I am surprised that they just turned this into a one-on-one match instead of adding a new third man to replace Itami and keep it a Triple Threat Match. I had assumed that Itami would win as the logical next challenger for Kevin Owens should he retain against Sami Zayn or if things went the other way, Zayn vs. Itami would be a great new headline matchup. Plus, Breeze and Balor have already been in title matches and Itami hadn’t. Now, it looks like Itami will probably get a shot at Owens in the future anyway should Owens retain, which I’m thinking he probably will. To Breeze’s credit, he remains self-obsessed and ignores Balor’s demon entrance. It was really cool the first time seeing it, less so when he does it for every TakeOver special. Balor and Breeze are both very good, but I’m just not as impressed by them as everybody else is.

Pretty basic back and forth match until Balor gets a roll-up for a near fall and then Breeze shoves him into the corner and hits the Beauty Shot, but Balor kicks out. Balor goes out to the floor while Breeze rests. Funny bit with the crowd chanting “You’re Not Counting at the referee while he should be counting Balor out. Breeze finally goes out after Balor and Balor ambushes him on the rampway and heads up to the top of the top of the stage video boards and dives off with a pretty basic dive attack. Beats him up some more and puts him back in the ring and finishes it with the Coup de grace for the win. Not an elite 5 star match by any means, but a very solid entertaining match from two of NXT’s biggest darlings with the crowd (even though Breeze is a heel, the crowd loves him).

The Divas tag team match is up next as Charlotte and Bayley unite forces to take on Emma and Dana Brooke. Charlotte schools Dana in the early going and tags in Bayley with a thunderous chop to Dana’s chest. Tag to Emma and Emma runs around the ring, trying to avoid a fight, even hiding behind Dana out on the floor, but Bayley knocks them both down and puts Emma back in the ring. Bayley goes up to the top, but Dana climbs up on the apron and grabs at her. Bayley nails Dana with a big right hanbs and shoves her away, but it allows Emma to knock Bayley down and turn the tide. Emma roughs up Bayley with some punches and clubbing blows and throws her into the corner and tags in Dana. Dana and Emma take turns tagging in and out and kicking Bayley in the mid-section. Emma takes Bayley back to the middle of the ring and flings her across the ring. Bayley sits up in the neutral corner and Emma hits the Emmamite Sandwich, though Graves says she doesn’t call it that any more, but fails to provide a new name for it. Emma plays to the crowd while Charlotte begs for the hot tag. Bayley catches Emma with a Belly-to-Belly Throw and makes the hot tag to Charlotte as Emma tags in Dana. Charlotte comes in on fire, knocking Dana down with Chops and then a big boot to the chest. Emma with a distraction, lets Dana club Charlotte from behind and once again turn the tables toward the heels favor. Charlotte counters a double team attempt into a Double DDT and covers Emma for a near fall. Charlotte rolls through a Flying Crosssbody from Emma and puts her in the Figure Four. Bayley and Dana into the ring. Charlotte breaks the hold for some reason as Bayley Suplexes Dana out of the ring. Charlotte hits Natural Selection on Emma for the win. Very good match. Charlotte and Bayley are maybe the best two female wrestlers to come along in the WWE in a long time, though you have to consider Paige in that conversation. Tonight was up to their usual standard. Creative bit with Charlotte bridging up on the Figure Four and Bayley sliding underneath her to stop Dana from breaking it up. It didn’t work out quite like they wanted and it made Dana look a little stupid standing there waiting for Bayley instead of breaking up the Figure Four. But I respect them for trying.

Over the next two weeks, the WWE has stacked up for us 2 Main Roster Pay Per View events as well as a 2-hour NXT Takeover, which if you don’t follow NXT is basically like a PPV event for them that they put on every 2-3 months. Starting May 17 with Payback, followed up by NXT Unstoppalbe on May 20 and concluding with a surprise Elimination Chamber PPV on May 31 that we only found out about 3 weeks before it takes place. Now, I don’t think these are going to be the best two weeks of wrestling of all time, or even all year, but it is going to be plenty of fun and it feels like anything can happen.

Let’s start with the top of the card this Sunday at Payback. We have a Fatal 4-Way for the WWE Championship that I am very much looking forward to. It is a near certainty that either Seth Rollins or Roman Reigns is going to be carrying the championship into SummerSlam where they will defend against a returning Brock Lesnar. However, a lot can happen between now and SummerSlam three months from now. We now have 4 Pay Per Views stacked up between now and SummerSlam – Payback, Elimination Chamber, Money in the Bank and Battleground. We could see any number of things happen. We could see Seth Rollins lose the title at Payback and win it back in the Elimination Chamber. We could see Rollins survive both the Fatal 4-Way and the Chamber only to see Roman Reigns win Money in the Bank and cash in on him in a reversal of fortunes. We could see Ambrose get his first World Championship, though that one is a long shot. There are a lot of possibilities for WWE to play around with. I do think that Rollins carries the title all the way to SummerSlam without interruption, but it is far from a certainty with all that is laid out on the road between now and then. No matter what happens, this should be an excellent match with tons of action and mark out moments.

From there we move to the next biggest match of Payback with John Cena against Rusev for the United States Championship in an “I Quit” Match. John Cena has never lost an “I Quit” Match. I will be shocked if John Cena loses this “I Quit” Match. It’s not gonna be a classic. I expect Rusev to royally pound on Cena and maybe even go into full on prisoner torture mode like Randy Orton did in his “I Quit” Match with Cena back in 2009. But no matter what happens, Cena will not quit and he’ll eventually hulk up and put Rusev in some crazy variation of the STF using ropes or a chain or duct tape or whatever’s handy to sell that Rusev isn’t just tapping out to an ordinary STF and Cena will retain. Of that, we can all be certain. The United States Open Challenge that Cena puts on is the best match of Raw every week and Cena’s new role in the company is apparently to beat everybody on the mid-card. I actually really like this plan because eventually, he will lose and it’s gonna make for a huge push for whoever beats him for the title. Meanwhile, for the guys he’s beating, everybody on the roster has lost cleanly to John Cena multiple times, so there is no shame in it and it doesn’t hurt them at all. The only exception to that is Rusev in my opinion. One loss, not so bad, but you take an unbeaten monster and have him lose to John Cena at 3 consecutive Pay Per Views and there is just no point in it other than to destroy Rusev. Rusev should have just spit on the United States Championship picture after Wrestlemania and moved on to fight somebody like Randy Orton or Dean Ambrose and transitioned into a World Champion contender. But after losing 3 straight Pay Per View matches for a mid-card title, there is nowhere for Rusev to go. After he quits on Sunday, he probably has to go away for a few months and then come back and start all over unless they can find a new twist for him that keeps the heat on his character. Not that I mind seeing him go, but it seemed like WWE was really into what they were doing with him and now they’re letting him be broken all the way down. Anything is possible in WWE, so it’s always possible that through some trickery or a shift in Cena’s never give up schtick that Rusev could regain the United States Championship, but to what end? What does WWE have to gain by putting the United States Championship back on Rusev? He’s already beaten all the supposed big American badasses except for Cena, so if he finally beats Cena to reclaim the championship there then becomes nowhere else for them to go with his storyline. There becomes no more American challengers to throw at him. There is nothing left for Rusev to accomplish in that storyline and it’s past time to end it and find something else for him. Despite this undoubtedly being an incredibly violent match, it’s really gonna be just two guys taking turns punching and kicking each other and hitting each other with weapons while melodramatically screaming at the other one to give up. It will be brutal and hold your attention, but it will not be a very good match in my opinion.

As for the rest of the card, Bray Wyatt vs. Ryack is intriguing and has a very good chance to exceed expectations. However, it feels like WWE just threw these two together because they didn’t have anything else to do with either of them. Those kind of situations can lead to phenomenal matches, but more commonly than not matches under those circumstances tend to suck majorly. Then we have a Ziggler vs. Sheamus rematch and despite being a fan of both guys, I really just don’t care about this one. That stupid Kiss Me Arse Match at Extreme Rules has just made their entire program a flop to me and they haven’t done anything to save it. Sheamus is very athletic for a guy his size and I thought he put on some of the best matches of his career against Daniel Bryan and Big Show during his run as World Heavyweight Champion, but I haven’t been impressed by his matches with Ziggler in the past. And we all know Ziggler is phenomenal. These guys just need to be matched up against anybody but each other, it feels like to me. King Barrett takes on Neville in a rematch from the King of the Ring Finals, which is also a rematch from the Extreme Rules Kickoff show and other than the Main Event, this is my pick for the best match on the card. Cesaro & Tyson Kidd challenge New Day for the Tag Team Titles 2-out-of-3 Falls Match, which makes me think of last year’s Battleground with Harper & Rowan against The Usos in the same type of match in what I think was the best match of the year. However, as great as Cesaro & Kidd are, New Day is not that good and I expect a decent match out of this one, but not a great one. That just leaves the Divas Tag Match and the Preshow tag match and let’s just call those what they are – space fillers.

NXT takes over the WWE Network for the 6th time on May 20th with Unstoppable and right at the top of the card you have what promises to be a match of the year candidate for sure in Kevin Owens vs. Sami Zayn for the NXT Championship. Their last match wasn’t the match that I was expecting, but that’s because first and foremost it was a beatdown used to write Sami Zayn off of NXT TV for a couple of months and it was only secondarily a wrestling match. This time, I’m expecting a classic on par with the Sami Zayn and Cesaro matches of 2013 and 2014.

The NXT Divas look to be set for another amazing night with Sasha Banks defending the Women’s Championship against Becky Lynch. This is kind of the opposite of the Ziggler / Sheamus match for me. With Ziggler / Sheamus, I like both guys, but don’t think they fit well together. However, with Sasha Banks and Becky Lynch, I don’t care for either lady, but their work together to this point has been riveting. Both ladies were a part of the Phenomenal Fatal 4-Way title match at the last Takeover along with Charlotte and Bayley and for this match the two had probably the most interesting contract signing segment I can remember seeing in a long time. As for Charlotte and Bayley, they team up to take on Emma and Dana Brooke in a Tag Team Match and Charlotte and Bayley have yet to put on a bad match that I’ve seen, so I have faith in this one though I’m not really feeling it.

Then we have the Triple Threat #1 Contenders Match between Finn Balor, Hideo Itami and Tyler Breeze. Unfortunately for Itami because I feel like he was probably slated to win this one, he’s suffered a shoulder injury and is expected to be pulled from this match. Whether he is replaced by another contender or it becomes a singles match between Balor and Breeze, it should still be a top notch match.

As for the rest, we have Baron Corbin taking on Rhyno. While the buildup for Baron Corbin and Rhyno hasn’t been as fun as the buildup for Baron Corbin and Bull Dempsey was, this match should be much better than that one was. And rounding out the card, Enzo Amore and Big Cass take on Blake & Murphy for the NXT Tag Team Championships and while Enzo & Cass are a great act on the mic, they aren’t really that impressive in the ring and Blake & Murphy just seem very bland to me, so I’m not expecting much out of these two teams as far as wrestling, but Enzo & Cass will no doubt rock the mic with a new variation on their usual schtick and the crowd with eat it up like candy. Also, I’ve felt from the time she debuted that her character has just been waiting for the right opportunity to stab Enzo & Cass in the back and with Blake & Murphy showering her with jewelry over the past couple months, I think the union between Blake, Murphy & Alexa Bliss could be a misdirect and Carmella could be leaving with the defending champions at Takeover.

As for the Elimination Chamber, we only know so far that there will be at least two Elimination Chamber matches – one for Daniel Bryan’s recently vacated Intercontinental Championship and one for the WWE Tag Team Championship. We’ve never seen a tag team Elimination Chamber, so we don’t know for sure if it’s gonna be 3 teams, 4 teams or 6 teams taking part. It could be 6 teams with multiple guys locked in each pod. It could be 3 teams with 2 guys starting and being handicapped without their partner until their partner is released. Or it could be 4 teams with 2 full teams starting out and 4 individuals locked in the pods with one individual released at a time, giving the teams locked in the pods the advantage of not having to wrestle the beginning of the match and get worn down, but also giving them the disadvantage of entering the ring without their partner against two complete teams, although theoretically worn down and weakened at that point. Any way it goes, it will be a first time and thus will be interesting. We also have a mid-card title being up for grabs in the Elimination Chamber for the very first time. And not that he’s really a candidate to win it, but I’ve read a lot of speculation about Adam Rose being booked as a part of that match and given somewhat of a push after his was featured on the E:60 NXT special.

While anything can happen on this schedule, I expect a fair amount of disappointment from certain matches on the cards as I have outlined. However, I also expect a few pleasant surprises and maybe even a big surprise or two and I’m definitely going to be glued to the TV on those three nights. $9.99 well spent.

1) Money in the Bank Ladder Match announcements. Really, the sooner that Payback has been and gone the better and we can get to the Money in the Bank Pay Per View on July 14 in Philadelphia. Shortly after Payback, we should start finding out what the ladder matches are going to look like. As for Payback, I think it’s pretty obvious at this point that Ryback is just another monster heel that they built up just to feed him to John Cena. It’s just another instance of Cena getting his ass kicked by the same guy in a month’s worth of attacks and then overcoming some injury or stipulation or both to win anyway on the Pay Per View, only this time he’s going to beat Ryback twice in the same night. As for CM Punk and Chris Jericho, it should be one of the best matches of the year, but unless Punk turns face or they pull a switcharoo and Punk doesn’t show up and gets replaced by Brock Lesnar or Curtis Axel, I don’t see anything surprising coming from it. They’ll put on a great show, but nothing with be gained or lost by either man. 95% chance that Punk shows up, teases being a face and cheats to beat Jericho, changing nothing and doing nothing we haven’t already seen Punk do to death all last year. He was entertaining at times, even while beating the heel champion’s dead horse all the way up until he wasn’t the champion any more. I’m expecting more of that, so if you are one of the sheep that thought what Punk was doing in the last half of 2012 was somehow cutting edge – well, then Payback should be all kinds of good news for you.

2) The Usos getting a push again in the tag team division. I don’t expect them to unseat The Shield, but it’s nice to see them adding new bits and pieces to the gimmick and picking up wins because like the Prime Time Players, neither one of them is likely to ever have a shot as a singles wrestler in anything other than a job squad capacity. I greatly enjoyed the Team Hell No storylines and still am as Daniel Bryan goes nuts on everybody trying to prove that he’s not the weak link, but I’m excited to potential see more traditional tag teams and tag team specialists getting more air time and doing something other than jobbing to pairs of singles wrestlers.

3) Dolph Ziggler coming back on TV. I imagine if WWE knew he still wouldn’t be cleared to compete this far into the future, they would have stripped him of the title and put it on Del Rio or Swagger at Extreme Rules and allowed Ziggler to win it again when he came back. A few days before Extreme Rules, he was still being advertised to appear in the Main Event of Monday Night Raw the night after Extreme Rules in a tag match with Ryback against Cena and Del Rio. As we know, that didn’t happen and Ziggler has still not wrestled since Swagger screwed the pooch by kicking the champion in the head wrong and causing a concussion. However, he will surely be back in time to defend the title against Del Rio at Payback and once he retains the belt, we can get a fresh program for him against somebody like Daniel Bryan or the Ziggler-Orton rivalry that was rumored to be happening leading into Wrestlemania 29, but never happened. With the Daniel Bryan and AJ stuff to still draw on and still be entertaining, I’m thinking that’s the direction they end up going as soon as Ziggler finishes with Del Rio and Bryan gives up on trying to beat the Shield as a tag team.

4) This is actually something NOT to look forward to, but something that is going to happen anyway and that’s Fandango winning the Intercontinental Championship. Brace yourselves now because the most mis-interpreted fan reaction we’ve seen in a while is going to culminate with Fandango winning the title in a Triple Threat Match against The Miz and Wade Barrett at Payback. If you were one of the people that ragged on John Cena for only using five basic moves and you’re one of the idiots at the arenas “Fandangoing”, go ahead and pull out your hypocrite stamp and slam it into your forehead because other than his spin kick (which Kofi Kingston and Cody Rhodes both employ more exciting variations of), everything that Johnny Curtis has shown us thus far as Fandango has been incredibly basic. And it doesn’t even take much talent since he has the ring apron to steady himself with before delivering it. On top of that, Jericho is lucky he didn’t end up on the shelf next to Dolph Ziggler after all the times Fandango landed on the back of his head with his leg drop.

5) More Curtis Axel. I’ve been down on the spawn of Mr. Perfect a bit because he just seems to fall flat charisma wise when you see him come up against Triple H and John Cena. It doesn’t feel to me like he’s able to make the crowd care about him, which is probably why they put him with Paul Heyman to see if he could get over that way in the first place. And others have agreed with me over in the I Love the WWE Facebook group (http://facebook.com/groups/ILoveDoubleDoubleE) that he just feels like he’s falling flat. And getting wins over Cena by countout doesn’t seem to be helping and I don’t see how anybody could have thought that it would. However, the kid can wrestle and I’ve compared him a few times stylistically to the late great “Ravashing” Rick Rude. He just needs to find some of the Hennig family charisma that made his dad great and he really could be exciting to watch for years to come.

After nearly being fired by Triple H the night after the Royal Rumble and then having his job dangled over the abyss during the Main Event of Over the Limit, John Laurinaitis faced a job performance review from Vince McMahon himself and I for one have dared to get my hopes up that the bumbling buffoon I call GM Johnny is finally removed from any on-air duties.

To begin the show, Johnny came out to make his case, but was immediately interrupted by Vince McMahon. The opening segment was full of Fire Johnny chants and Johnny bumbles along through his delivery as always and then Sheamus comes out to sarcastically make a case for Johnny to keep his job. Johnny then goes to the back to pick out Sheamus’ opponent and Vince informs Johnny that he’d better pick a very good opponent for Sheamus and the entire show had better be impressive or at the end of the night, he would be fired. Vince then added insult to injury as on top of the stress he put Johnny under, the Chairman drove Johnny’s “People Power” scooter over the edge of the entrance ramp.

After the commercial break, Johnny comes out and announces that Sheamus’ opponent would be Lord Tensai and Tensai stormed out to the ring and knocked his manager Sakamoto flat. Tensai wasn’t wearing his komono or helmet and he didn’t waddle slowly out to the ring like usual, so that might be a good sign that he’s going to last somehow because the scuttlebutt I’ve been hearing has indicated that Tensai (formerly Prince Albert and A-Train) would once again be repackaged just 2 months after the debut of his Tensai character. Regardless of what Tensai’s future might hold, this was a match I suggested was one that needed to happen at some point this year (which you can read about in my Real American Top 10 posts). The two men put on a very physical match, leaving marks all over each other, which shouldn’t really be that hard considering both of them look like they have spent most of the year avoiding sunlight. I very much enjoyed this first match of the night and Sheamus ultimately won via the Brogue Kick. After the match, Tensai beat down his own manager, which got zero reaction from the crowd.

After news broke this weekend that Alberto Del Rio would not be able to challenge Sheamus for the World Heavyweight Championship this Sunday at No Way Out as was advertised and on the air they explained it as a concussion that Del Rio suffered at the hands of The Great Khali on last week’s Smackdown. Backstage, Vince asked Johnny what he planned to do to determine a new challenger for Sheamus’ World Heavyweight Championship at No Way Out. Johnny then asked Teddy for an idea and Teddy suggested Christian vs. Dolph Ziggler vs. Jack Swagger vs. The Great Khali in a Fatal 4-Way Elimination Match and Johnny crappily tried to pass off the idea as his own. Johnny then tried to fist bump Vince, but Vince would have none of it, responding simply “You’ve got small hands,” which of course implies that Johnny has a small penis.

In other backstage action, one-half of the Tag Team Champions R-Truth commented about being okay after Big Show physically dominated the champions and Brodus Clay two weeks ago on Raw and Big Show interrupted by knocking R-Truth out with the WMD.

For the second match of the night, United States Champion Santino Marella teamed with Diva’s Champion Layla against Beth Phoenix and Ricardo Rodriguez and I assumed that Santino was obviously going to beat Ricardo with the Cobra and some other sort of hijinks, but Santino ended up juking Ricardo into running head first into the ring post and while the men were outside, Beth beat Layla with the Glam Slam. After the match, Santino tore Ricardo’s dress shirt off, revealing a Justin Bieber T-Shirt that looked like it was a women’s medium crammed over Ricardo’s men’s XL torso.

Kofi Kingston then stormed in on GM Johnny’s office where David Otunga is taking the opportunity to suck up to Mr. McMahon. GM Johnny then returns from checking on R-Truth, who “isn’t doing well” after being knocked out by Big Show’s WMD. Kofi then demands a match with Big Show, which Johnny agrees to, but then Johnny gives another horrible delivery of his line (but at least he got the words right) as he makes it a Steel Cage match. Johnny cannot sell drama worth a damn. He’s a terrible public speaker and his verbal delivery is as dull and flat as they come and he does not deserve to have an on-screen job. He never did. You could go to the Special Olympics and find that 90% of the kids there have better public speaking chops than GM Johnny. His existence as an on-air talent just goes to show you that WWE fails to recognize the difference between legitimate heat on a character and people booing them simply because they are not good at their job. GM Johnny wouldn’t be a good enough actor to be cast in the movie Thankskilling (go look it up on Netflix, it’s possibly the worst acted movie of all time).

Daniel Bryan comes out at the top of the second hour and he cuts a promo about his former girlfriend AJ and her flirting with his opponents in the Triple Threat Match for the WWE Championship at No Way Out. CM Punk then interrupts as he makes his way to the ring for the match and cuts a promo on Daniel Bryan and tells him that AJ is out of his league, just like Daniel Bryan is nowhere close to being in Punk’s league in the ring. Punk went on to insult “goat faced moron” Daniel Bryan for another few minutes, prompting chants of “Goat Face” directed at Bryan. Kane then finally interrupts and gives his take on things and reminds everybody of some of his past antics including lighting Jim Ross on fire, electrocuting Shane McMahon’s testicles and Piledriving a priest and Kane says that his “pipe bombs” unlike Punk’s actually do damage. AJ then comes out and this love rectangle continues as she claims she saw that Kane has a heart when she looked into his eyes last week. The bottom line is, AJ says she knows the best man will win at No Way Out, but leaves it hanging as to who she thinks the best man is. GM Johnny then appears on the Tron to announce that CM Punk will have to team with AJ to take on Kane and Daniel Bryan, but that match won’t be until later.

Next up was the Fatal 4-Way Elimination Match to determine the challenger for Sheamus’ World Heavyweight Championship at No Way Out this Sunday. My pick going in was Dolph Ziggler with Jack Swagger as a dark horse pick depending on how they wanted to work around the current growing rift storyline involving Dolph Ziggler, Jack Swagger and their manager Vickie Guerrero. Going into the match, I in no way saw The Great Khali potentially winning, mostly because his time in the World Title picture was never popular and Khali’s lack of athleticism is always criticized. All four of these men were former World Heavyweight Champions, including Ziggler even though his World Championship reign lasted for less than an entire episode of Smackdown a year and a half ago. Khali would be the first one eliminated after a Frog Splash from Christian and all three men pinning him at the same time. Christian then overcame the numbers disadvantage and hit Swagger with the Killswitch and Ziggler covered Swagger and eliminated him, much to Vickie’s dismay. Ziggler would go on to survive pretty much everything in Christian’s arsenal save for the Killswitch and then Ziggler hit the ZigZag, but Christian surprisingly kicked out. Christian then countered a second ZigZag and hit a Reverse DDT, but Ziggler again survived. Ziggler then avoiding some top rope offense from Christian and finally hit another ZigZag, this time for the win and Ziggler advanced to face Sheamus for the World Heavyweight Championship this Sunday.

The Goldberg chants came next as Ryback (formerly Skip Sheffield) faced two more jobbers in yet another 2-on-1 Handicap Match, who called themselves the “Commanders in Chief”, named Willard Fillmore and Rutherford “P.S.” Hayes. Apparently, these dinks didn’t know that President Fillmore’s name was Millard and not Willard. Either way, Ryback destroyed them as per usual.

John Cena made his first appearance of the night, making a case for GM Johnny to be fired. Vince responded by bringing up Cena’s loss to The Rock at Wrestlemania. Cena then brought up Vince’s Wrestlemania losses against Shane McMahon (Wrestlemania XVII), Hulk Hogan (Wrestlamania XIX), Shawn Michaels (Wrestlemania 22) and Bret Hart (Wrestlemania XXVI) and even joked “and didn’t you lose to Snooki too, or was that somebody else.” In the end, Vince simply warned John Cena not to go out to save Kofi Kingston in his Steel Cage Match against Big Show.

Big Show vs. Kofi Kingston in a Steel Cage Match was next and of course Big Show was going to dominate this match due to his ginormous monster heel push and the fact that his Steel Cage Match with John Cena is obviously being promoted as the Main Event at No Way Out this Sunday. Kingston was surprisingly able to land Trouble in Paradise, but Big Show put himself way over by launching Kofi clear across the ring to kick out of the pinfall seconds later. Big Show then knocked Kofi out and spent a couple of minutes walking around the ring and taunting the crowd before finally leaving the cage and winning the match.

Sin Cara continued his return from injury tour with another victory over the job squad, which this time was represented by Curt Hawkins. Guys like Sin Cara, Ryback and Brodus Clay are long overdue for some actual plot lines instead of the meaningless put over matches they’ve been having. Admittedly it has only been two weeks since Sin Cara came back and he has had actual programs in the past before his injury. Brodus and Ryback do not have that same track record and people are soon going to get bored with them (if they aren’t already) if they don’t start doing something meaningful soon.

Vader returned on special invitation from GM Johnny in honor of Raw’s upcoming 1000th Episode. This could definitely be a trend that continues leading up to July 23. Vader looked incredibly out of shape for this match and had to use all fours to climb the ring steps and get into the ring. The crowd chanted “you’ve still got it,” which doesn’t say much for them because he obviously didn’t still have “it”. However, he did beat Heath Slater. Slater, much like GM Johnny should just keep his mouth closed. When he picks up a mic, it makes me want to stab out my eardrums until I can find the remote control and mute his red-headed squeaky-scratchy-voice having ass.

CM Punk & AJ against Kane and Daniel Bryan would be the Main Event of the night in what basically amounts to a Handicap Match against Punk with a useless partner, who if the match holds true to form will get tagged into that match at some random juncture in which the action will stop and something screwy, silly, stupid or weird will happen leading to the finish. And indeed, something silly happened when AJ got in the ring and skipped around Kane. She then jumped onto Kane, wrapped her legs around him and commenced to make out with the Big Red Machine until Punk could regroup. Kane then tagged out to Daniel Bryan and left and AJ tagged Punk back in and Punk beat Bryan with the Macho Man Elbow Drop while Kane looked on in confusion.

Then it was finally time for the real Main Event of the night – the potential firing of John Laurinaitis to end this three hour edition of Monday Night Raw. Vince comes out and has security around the ring and when Johnny arrives, Vince informs him that the security is there to escort a certain somebody out of the ring, out of the building and out of the business. Johnny then stumbles through some kind of dialogue where he asks to be left in charge of the Era of People Power. Vince then prepares to fire Johnny, but is interrupted by the arrival of Big Show. Big Show then hypes his “Ironclad contract” and shoots on Vince for all of the embarrassing stuff he had to do over the years like going down against Shaquille O’Neal, Floyd Mayweather and Ben Roethlisberger to get the WWE on SportsCenter. Cena then came out to the ring to join in on the festivities. Vince then promises to fire GM Johnny if Big Show loses at No Way Out and Big Show and Cena try to get at each other and security gets involved and Big Show throws them out of the ring. Cena then jumps on Big Show and Vince tries to break it up and catches a WMD from Big Show by mistake. Johnny then coaxes Big Show to the back and Cena stands in the ring shocked with Vince laid out to end the show.